


Shielded in Turn

by Lassarina



Series: 2017 Sev and Rina Prompt Extravaganza [20]
Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 09:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12528584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: The path of her life bends back to a single point.





	Shielded in Turn

Rydia has been so long beneath the Eidolon passage that even the red light and molten seas of the Underworld look strange to her; she expects land of silver and water of liquid magic. She can scarcely recall the blue skies and green earth in the World Above, and to be honest, the concept scares her somewhat. The Eidolons' powers ensure that all her needs are met in the Feymarch, but it is all slightly _different_ than her childhood memories.

Yet even had Asura and Leviathan not commanded her to go forth and aid Cecil, she could not have stayed in the Feymarch once she learned of the stakes. She has not yet reconciled the harm Cecil brought her (if unwitting) with the good he seeks to do now, but that is not relevant; she will not let the world fall when she could hold it up.

She wonders if Cecil has forgiven himself. She thinks not. He thought she did not know, but she is well aware that he stood guard over her while she slept, in part because that is simply the man that he is, but also because he did not know how else to make amends.

She doesn't know how he might make amends either, but she will have time to think.

Asura opened one of the secret paths out of the Feymarch—only out, never in, nothing not of the Feymarch can pass into it without going through the Eidolon Passage—and showed her the way to the dwarves' castle. As Rydia follows the path, her shoes scraping dully on the stone, she is grateful not to have to navigate the Eidolon Passage. The monsters there do not trouble themselves to discern if a traveler is coming or going, and while her magic is stronger by far than it was when she first came to the Feymarch, she is not suited to take them all on alone.

No one is suited to do this alone, Asura told her, not even the Queen of the Feymarch, much less the last daughter of Mist. Alone, Cecil too is doomed to failure, but with companions, the threads of fate might weave a different cloth.

Rydia does not know what Asura saw when she scried in Leviathan's waters, but all of Asura's four faces looked perturbed when she returned, which on another Eidolon would have indicated deep terror, though the Queen never would admit to such a thing. That of itself was enough to send her on this journey—but for all that she has not quite forgiven Cecil for his part in Mist's destruction, neither would she see him dead at a sorcerer's hand.

And so, when she emerges from the tunnel into the rocky wastes near the dwarves' castle, she moves swiftly to the throne room. Asura said only that she has little time, and so she does not waste a moment.

Dwarves are an open people, and they do not question her when she says she must speak with King Giott and his paladin visitor, instead pointing her toward the crystal room. She is just drawing near when the voice like velvet thunder rolls over her, seducing and repelling in equal measure, as the sorcerer says "Your eyes should still be free."

She is already shaping the words for her mother's dragon as she runs the last few feet to the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "singularity."


End file.
